The Double Life of Véronique (1991)
At first this movie flew mostly over my head. The setting was also wrong, because I watched it with some family and I think their tv was calibrated in a weird way. The colors were very underwhelming and not what I would expect from the cinematographer. The others didn’t engage with the movie either and it was just a frustrating experience being mostly confused.
I remedied this by doing a bit research by listening to some of the commentary by Annette Insdorf on Criterion and then watched it alone at home with proper colors. Much better experience and I realized I should just have went with my intuition instead of trying to analyze everything. I got many of hints of connection between the two, the importance of the music, how the Polish Weronika lived a full, but short, artistic life, while the French Veronique lived but was clearly feeling frustrated and unsatisfied throughout the film. The backdrop of big politcal changes draws threads to Kieslowskis later trilogy - in particular Blue - with the music and the unification of Europe. But all of this is vague and subtle, and Kieslowski obviously likes to create more questions than answers for the viewer.
On the other hand, I also feel it can be a little too vague and subtle. There is an abundance of symbolism but I think it lacks in emotional depth. Irene Jacob is of course on all metrics spectacular and just captivating to behold. It just mostly made me want to rewatch The Three Colors Trilogy. This felt like a bit too experimental prelude to the great cinematography, music and poetic symbolism - which Kieslowski then combined with his captivating characters and emotional strengths (which I saw more of in A Short Film About Love and A Short Film About Killing) later in Blue, White and Red. Maybe I need to come back to this movie again in a few years though. Seems like the kind that could grow on you down the line.
Rating: 3.5